origin of caste ezhava in kerala?

Answer 1

From Wikipedia:
Myths and Theories of Origin
The origin of the word Ezhava is hotly disputed. According to one theory, the etymology of the word Ezhava is 'people of Ezham', Ezham(Eelam) being an ancient Tamil name for Sri Lanka. One of the theories that is supported by the Vadakkan Paattu (Northern Ballad) of the legendary Thiyya warrior Aaromal Chekavar. Legend has it that his family were the descendants of one of the seven warriors sent to Kerala by the Sri Lankan king .


Indigenous origin
Current linguistic research indicates that the word Eelam or Eezham[thiyyar or dweepar might have derived from dweep means island again pointing srilanka.] is derived from archaic Tamil word iiZham for Toddy. As such Eezhavas most probably are an indigenous and not immigrant community.Iram or Ira in kannada also means Toddy. The community engaged in this toddy shapping are called Idigas name resembling to Ezhava. They are also called Deevaru pointing fact that they are also from a Dweep meaning island.

There is also belief that the word Eezham is old name of Srilanka and ezhavas also came from srilanka.

Ezhava is the name of a caste (religious sub-group) in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Sociologically, Ezhava caste has never found a place in the four-tier caste system of the Hindu community. Speculations of Buddhist origin and / or migration from the Sri lanka could be sought as the reasoning behind this.

Today Ezhavas make up a major community in Kerala, comprising of about 29% of its population. Until the end of Royal rule, Ezhavas were considered a backward community, because of their position outside the Hindu four-fold caste hierarchy and their unwillingness to cater to the needs of the upper caste Brahmins and royalty. Sree Narayana Guru, the greatest social reformer that Kerala has seen, was primarily responsible for the uplift of the Ezhava community.

The origin of the word Ezhava is often disputed. The most plausible explanation is that it means "people from Ezham (Sri Lanka)".

Although, traditionally agriculturists, many Ezhavas were notable as Ayurvedic physicians, warriors and traders. In fact the translation of Ashtanga Hridaya (Sanskrit Ayurvedic text) to Malayalam was done by none other than an Ezhava physician, Kayikkara Govindan Vaidyar.

Answer 2

the cast system has its origin as stated by you , right from the Vedic times . The rishis or seers of those times divided for the sake of working convenience people into four divisions according to their natures : 1) Brahmin 2) kshatriya 3) Vaishya 4) Shudra . 1) Brahmins - are those who thirst for Knowledge. 2) Kshatriyas - are those who love heroism and honour. 3) Vaishyas - are those who love, exchange, communication, friendship, prosperity, wealth . 4) Shudras - are those who like to work for society, develop individually and collectively through work. Thus as you see, that originally the system was built up on a very sound principle. However, as time passed, it degenerated into the fact, that the son of a brahmin became brahmin and the son of a Kshatriya became a kshatriya, and so on. In its origin in the Vedic times, the son of a brahmin could be Kshatriya as per his nature. I was a teacher in 1969, in Sri Aurobindo Inernational Centre of Education, - a school and college started by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry (S. India). We were given a batch of 52 students, both boys and girls, for a level of students who just came to secondary level ie. class 5 standard. we divided the batch into four (4) batches , that were named as , 1) Knowledge 2) Honour 3) Prosperity 4) Work As you can see at once that we had divided the students as per their nature as the four castes with the new modern sarroundings and names . The students and other teachers or the management knew nothing of our experiment, except the seven teachers who were directly involved in teaching in our section. we had arrived at some of the most wonderful results. We developed a relation with most of these students that has lasted a life-time. Only we had to work for more harder in such a system to teach. The mother was ofcourse there to guide us to any of our queries and difficulties.

Answer 3

Ezhava

Answer 4

Indian?

Answer 5

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Caste_System.htm